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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/26376385">These Flames Will Not Cease</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Merixcil/pseuds/Merixcil'>Merixcil</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, Force Bond (Star Wars), Hurt/Comfort, Major Character Injury, Peril, post-TFA</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-09-09</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-09-09</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 08:01:04</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,779</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/26376385</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Merixcil/pseuds/Merixcil</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Kylo saves Rey, only to have to give her up all over again</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>8</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>20</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>These Flames Will Not Cease</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Here's something I wrote ages ago, before TLJ came out, that is no longer even slightly canon compliant but I found it at the back of my WIPs folder and figured I wasn't really losing anything to post it</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The seal on the hull hisses open, pumping the last small freighter on the <em>Imperator</em> full of smoke. They will have locked him out of the navi systems for the flight deck by now, or he’d risk a TIE fighter, but hopefully they haven’t thought to cut him off from the civilian craft. Kylo moves into the YT something-or-other, the likes of which he hasn’t flown in years, and he could swear the ship keels beneath their combined weight. Rey hangs loose at his side, barely held up by the arm she has slung across his shoulders. She reaches for the access panel to close the doors but misses the mark, knocking her lightsabre free to skitter across the shoddy metal tiling, the screech it must make is lost under the wail of sirens as the Star Destroyer goes down.</p><p>The floor lurches under them as the <em>Imperator</em> loses stability. Engines blown and most of the hull destroyed by Resistance fighters, and didn’t they pick one hell of a time to show up? If the wreckage slips too far it will break atmo over Takodona’s south pole and cause untold environmental damage.</p><p>Kylo closes his eyes and pushes away half remembered forestscapes and lakes stretching off over undulating hills. There’s nothing he can do to save it now. He pulls Rey further upright, ignoring her fallen lightsabre as he reaches for the airlock controls, knowing that the automated systems will close the doors for them. The hatch slips shut and the sirens and the thunder of Resistance fire as they try to break up the ship sound muted, like they might be happening to someone else.</p><p>They are happening to many other people. Hux is dead, Phasma missing. Kylo himself took the bloodied shell of the thing that had once been Snoke and drove his ‘sabre through its chest and it had laughed.</p><p>Kylo starts moving Rey towards the passenger bay, where he can lay her out on one of the seats, or beds if they’re lucky. Strapped up tight she won’t be in danger of hurting herself any further on the trip to the Resistance base. And then…</p><p>He can worry about that later.</p><p>Medical supplies. He needs medical supplies to patch Rey up, and it’s not legal for a ship like this to travel without them. When he was a kid they used to-</p><p><em>Not helpful</em>. Kylo scolds himself.</p><p>“What?” Rey looks up at him with glazed eyes. Kylo can feel the blood pooling under the hand he has on her hip, but that’s not the root of the problem. Snoke did something to her, something with the Force. He shuffles them over to the nearest seating booth, brushing up gently against her mind. Their connection is disjointed, but he picks his way through the tattered remains of barriers he’s never had to cross to reach her till he finds where she’s buried herself.</p><p>She’s fragmented, drifting. And when he tries to sooth the outer edges of her soul she flinches away from him.</p><p>“I need to look!”</p><p>Rey heaves herself up, steadying herself against the table with shaking hands. Kylo reaches after her, the animal desire to staunch the bleeding overriding all other brain function.</p><p>“We need…to fly.” Rey rasps.</p><p>“I’ll fly, you rest.”</p><p>Rey throws the Force into the hand she uses to stop him from dragging her back down to the booth. “You need a co-pilot.”</p><p>“No, I don’t.”</p><p>“Yes, you do.”</p><p>“I’ve flown ships like this all my life.”</p><p>“Then you know you need a co-pilot to get you into hyperspace.” Rey grins dopily at him, completely out of it. If she weren’t exsanguinating all over the floor it might be cute. “C’mon, we gotta move.”</p><p>Her eyes can’t stay focused on anything for longer than a second and she’s shaking like a leaf from shock, but Rey’s putting so much power behind her every word. Mind tricks always were what she was best at. She slips up against his mind, wrapping the jagged edges of herself around him and tugging, tugging him over to her way of thinking.</p><p>For as long as he’s known her, Rey has maintained that coercion of this kind is highly invasive and should only be used under dire circumstances. Kylo saves them both the trouble of the impending back and forth that she will inevitably win by wrapping both arms around her torso and dragging her, like a defunct droid, to the cockpit.</p><p>Kylo guides Rey into the co-pilot’s chair and hisses when he sees that the blood has soaked all the way down her right side. He doesn’t know what lies underneath it all, he had missed that fight by seconds. All that was left for him to do was to finish off Snoke and get them out of there, but it was Rey’s hard won victory.</p><p>“It’s not as bad as it looks.” She lies.</p><p>Regardless of the need for a co-pilot, they can’t go anywhere till they do something about the bleeding. Hyperspace or no hyperspace, she’ll never survive the journey to Hoth in this state. Panic rushes through Kylo’s chest. <em>I can’t lose you. I only just found you</em>.</p><p><em>You won’t</em>. Rey assures him. “Pass me your lightsabre.”</p><p>Kylo winces, knowing what she has planned. He’s done the same thing a few times in the past. “You sure you don’t want me to do it?”</p><p>“You need to initialise the start up sequence.”</p><p>She’s right. Beneath them, the <em>Imperator</em> shifts again and the sound of laser fire is fading. The firefight is drawing to a close. Kylo tries to reach out with the Force to get some sense of the damage, but he can’t bring himself to drag his consciousness away from Rey long enough to get a good look.</p><p>“Less recon, more flying.” Rey’s gripping his mind tight, trying to find something to bite down on when she cauterises the wound.</p><p>The smoke crackles off Kylo’s lightsabre. He does what he can to stay on task, flicking switches and firing up the fuel accelerators. But when Rey presses the blade to her open wound, everything is wiped out by the blinding pain that rockets through them both. In theory they share the experience, lessening the burden on either party, but instead it doubles up on itself, reverberating between them. The cockpit rings with their screams.</p><p>“S-sorry.” Rey’s voice is barely above a whisper, her face ashen. “Hold on, I’ll-“ She shuffles forward to start running through the start up for the hyperdrive controls.</p><p>Kylo sits, quaking in his seat. Generally speaking, Force users don’t leave that much blood when they dispose of their targets, and it never hurts that much to repair the damage. “What did he do to you?”</p><p>Rey shakes her head, engages the forward thrusters. “Later.”</p><p>Take-off is unexpectedly smooth, Kylo able to guide them out of the hangar and through the worst of the wreckage without incident. When they’re clear, Rey tugs hard on the hyperdrive accelerator and the stars before them blur into blue.</p><p>Rey falls back against her seat, clutching the hole in her side. <em>Did you get a look at the planet?</em></p><p>
  <em>No. </em>
</p><p>
  <em>But…Maz.</em>
</p><p>“She’ll be fine.” Kylo’s voice is unsteady, and oddly loud in the relative silence of hyperspace.</p><p><em>I…Snoke…he was…</em> Rey’s thoughts come to him in incomplete snatches, drained of all reserves and with time to fall apart she can’t help herself. Kylo makes sure he’s got the route to Hoth 13 fully established before turning his attention entirely to her.</p><p>Rey’s hair and clothes are singed and bloody, her skin covered in marks that could as easily be ash as bruises. Her limbs have fallen into a wide star where she’s collapsed in the chair, her body almost totally limp save the deep furrow of her brow.</p><p>She doesn’t manage full words, but Rey sends Kylo a scattering of images to let him know that she knows he’s watching her. He smiles, blushing, and it feels like the wrong time except it’s all the time they have left. If he walks into the Resistance compound, with Rey in such a state, he’ll he dead before he has a chance to say ‘it wasn’t my fault’. He’ll have to leave her with a local and hope that she won’t turn her nose up at mind tricking them to getting her back to her friends fast. The thought of leaving her so soon makes his heart ache, no matter that they can always find each other in the Force.</p><p>I’ll find you.</p><p>They drop in and out of hyperspace, occasionally catching a glimpse of Resistance pilots making the same trip. Rey sleeps through most of the journey, answering his gentle probes about her wellbeing with dreams of lightsabre drills she learned with Luke and a future that never asks her to settle on a desert planet ever again.</p><p>They land a few miles out from the Resistance base on Hoth 13, a moderately cold planet that lacks the thick snow which characterises its more famous cousin.</p><p>Rey mostly makes her way to the door under her own steam. What sleep she’s gotten has done wonders for her state of mind, though it will take weeks of meditation to fully even herself out. At the very least, the space between her and Kylo has become easier to traverse.</p><p>“I should go alone.” Rey doesn’t meet his eye as she retrieves her fallen lightsabre.</p><p>She’s right. Kylo twists in on himself, wishing desperately that she wasn’t. “But…Snoke.” <em>We need to talk. </em></p><p>“Later.” Rey opens the hatch to reveal a dingy spaceport in a backwater town, locals fluttering around the ship already. “Soon, I’ll find you.” She leans up to kiss him, brief and beautiful and not enough. Kylo holds the moment between them, passing it back and forward till it surrounds them completely.</p><p>Rey pulls away with a sad smile, and starts making her way down the access hatch. Kylo Hears her should for assistance, followed by a hubbub as various opinions are offered on how to get her to the Resistance base.</p><p><em>Go</em>. Rey whispers.</p><p>Without a co-pilot, he’ll have to wait till he’s way off planet before he can re-enter hyperspace. Kylo rushes back to the cockpit, running through start up sequences he’s known since before he could walk. As the freighter pulls away, he wraps himself around Rey’s beating heart one last time before letting their connection run thin.</p><p>It will be enough to light his way back to her when the time is right. But the days between now and then promise to be lonely and long.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>You can find me on <a href="https://jeffersonhairpie.tumblr.com/">tumblr</a> and <a href="https://twitter.com/chadfuture_">twitter</a></p><p>Comments are love!</p></blockquote></div></div>
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